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There is an easy way and a complicated way of talking about the art of selling, just as there is an easy way and a hard way to live.
CHAPTER 1
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt
ovo o E_icv_c
T
here is an easy way and a complicated way of talking about the art of
selling, just as there is an easy way and a hard way to live. Since I
personally like books that are easy to understand, I will
try to present things as simply as I can. But since I know some of us also enjoy
the theoretical, difficult, and mentally challenging aspects of marketing theory, I
will throw in a little bit of that, too.
First, the simple stuff.
One of the things that I have liked the most about interviewing
executives and CEOs is that on many occasions I have had to sit pa- tiently in
the corner of a large office while the executive took a sales call that could not
be missed. Listening to these sales calls has been an education in itself.
The funny thing is, almost every salesperson I have ever heard on the
phone uses exactly the same approach. It is not like the mov- ies, such as in
Oliver Stone's Wall Street, where high-powered ego- maniacs are talking fifty
million miles an hour into their cell phones and screaming at the top of their
lungs to convince people to buy their products or ideas.
In fact, what you hear is exactly the opposite. Most buyers, whether those
buyers are elderly people looking for a good vacuum
9
10 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
cleaner or a board of directors looking for a new CEO, are cautious buyers, and
they tend to trust soft-spoken, highly credentialed peo- ple who talk slowly,
express the facts, and give other people time to think.
This is how real master salespeople act:
• Master salespeople, especially when they are on a sales call,
either in person or on the phone, speak very quietly and very
slowly.
• Master salespeople on a sales call hardly ever seem to show
any emotion except for enthusiasm, compassion, or positive
regard. They never display prejudice, political opinions, or any kind of
defensiveness or negative emotion whatsoever. Master salespeople
rarely get angry and never express anger, even if they feel it.
• Master salespeople never take no for an answer but always
seem to quietly find some different angle to pursue in conver-
sation, even if their original proposal is turned down.
• Master salespeople seem to always find a way to get every
caller to ''leave the door open'' for another conversation, even
if they don't get what they want the first time.
• Master salespeople seem to realize that cultivating and build-
ing personal relationships is more important than making an
immediate sale. They would never compromise a friendship to make a
sale. But by using this approach, they make more sales to more people
more often.
Those are the basic similarities I have noticed about all master salespeople
whenever I have seen them in action in person or on the telephone.
But there is another important similarity I have noticed that is harder to
capture in a few phrases. It is this: Most master salespeople seem to use a
precise scientific formula to communicate themselves and their products to
potential customers in an extremely methodi-
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 11
cal but powerful fashion. After listening to many master salespeople do the
same thing several thousand times, I began to figure out what they were doing.
I gradually discovered that they were all using an invisible mar- keting
worksheet that contained a highly distilled and focused strat- egy for
communicating certain key points about themselves and their products to
every person they talked with. They all seemed to have done research on the
personality styles and the interests of the people to whom they were trying to
sell. And they used a different style of communication, depending on whom it
was they were talk- ing to.
Moreover, I noticed that all these master salespeople almost al- ways
spoke in a level, nonemotional tone in short, direct sentences. And although
each one used a highly personalized technique, they were all using some kind
of invisible sales sheet in their heads that
might look something like this if you were to put it on paper:
Sales Strategy Worksheet
Customer: Time/Date: Assistant(s):
Telephone: Fax: E-mail:
Address:
Occupation of customer/buying power:
Product to sell this customer:
Competitive strengths of my product:
1. 2. 3.
What's in it for the customer? Why should the customer care about my product?
1. 2. 3.
12 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Customer type:
Age/Sex/Marital status/Education:
Personality type:
Stress points:
Calming points:
Interests/Family values:
Sales strategy:
Initial comments of customer to first call and follow-up strategy: (i.e., How did I handle
obstacles and what do I plan to do. . . . keeping notes on every call)
Granted, all master salespeople, such as CEOs and other top ex- ecutives,
don't actually have paper versions of this kind of worksheet. Some simply carry
the information around in their heads. But make no mistake about it, all master
salespeople know every single piece of information that would be included on
such worksheets, if they used them. And some of them actually do.
So, in the first part of the book we will spend some time talking about
why it is important to know each piece of information on this Sales Strategy
Worksheet; then, in the next part, we will talk about how to use this
information to your sales advantage once you have it.
But first, I want to introduce you to another ''invisible sheet'' that all master
salespeople seem to use. Let's call it the Marketing Identity Worksheet. It is
this sheet that gives the master sales and marketing professional that supreme
self-confidence and power in a sales call. It is each businessperson's manifesto,
and it guides every business letter, marketing statement, or press release he
will ever write or approve.
If you were to put the key elements of this invisible Marketing
Identity Worksheet on one page, it would look something like this:
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c
Marketing Identity Worksheet
Company name:
My mission:
My values:
Services and/or product(s):
Potential customers:
Competitive strengths of services and/or product(s):
1.
2.
3.
What's in it for the customer? Why should the customer care what I have to say?
1.
2.
3.
13
Now, anyone who has completed a few business courses might
scoff at such a sheet, protesting that it is too simplistic.
Only after they have been successful in business for a while or have
accepted tenure as a professor at a major business school does it dawn on most
people that marketing is simple and that if you ig- nore the basics for one
second, you're finished before you start.
That is why every single CEO or other master salesperson I have ever met
seems to project with absolute solid authority, every single second spent in
public, the filled-in blanks of the Marketing Identity Worksheet.
As a matter of fact, to continue refining the message of their key marketing
points and then commit the message of this worksheet to
14 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
heart and memory until it becomes a mantra is usually an ongoing and pivotal
part of their job. To keep selling this refined message to the entire organization
is the next step.
Why?
Think about it. The preparation that goes into a sale may take
months and months of intellectual analysis, but there always comes the
moment of truth that, for lack of a better expression, is called the sales call.
The sales call might be a presentation made before a corporate board, or it
might be an interview on someone's front porch. It doesn't matter. The
approach has to be the same. You don't have the time or the luxury to make up
your sales presentation on the spot. If you try to wing it, most people will think
you're unprofessional, or simply mad.
The business world has no tolerance for extemporaneous genius
or sudden bursts of wild emotion and undisciplined enthusiasm.
In business, you must always project yourself as being nonemo- tional,
well-prepared, and right, just like Star Trek 's Mr. Spock. Most potential
buyers, because of the science of personality, would buy anything from Mr.
Spock, because Mr. Spock has no emotions—just facts. As mentioned, most
buyers, as a general rule, are made suspi- cious by high emotion and
uncontrolled enthusiasm.
On the other hand, buyers are made comfortable by facts and a calm
assurance: ''My product is going to take the guesswork and
uncertainty out of your life.''
Therefore, your sales pitch has to be memorized; it has to be precise; it
has to include a personal knowledge of all the information on the worksheet
above; and whether you like it or not, it has to be spiritually oriented.
By spiritually oriented I mean this: You must be selling a product that you
believe in to the core of your soul, and that you feel can make people's lives
better, or easier, or ease human suffering in some way.
If you do not feel this passionately about your product, no one is going to
buy it. Even worse, people will sense your insecurity and will resent you for
trying to sell something you don't believe in, and your reputation will be ruined
forever with these people.
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 15
Now, some people might challenge this idea, saying that it is not
applicable if, for example, you are selling garden seeds or used cars. It is my
experience, however, that the spiritually grounded and customer-conscious
aspects of sales are paramount, no matter what you are selling—even if it is
used cars. The reason is that, again, most people are made uncomfortable by
people who give potential clients or customers the impression that they are
selling something they do not believe in, and/or that they might be trying to
sell them some- thing that they don't need or want. Your ultimate goal as a
salesper- son is to put people at ease and to let them know that you are
concerned about their purchase. So even if you are selling used cars, you will
sell a lot more of them if you make a habit of letting your customers know that
you do not want to sell them a used car that is not right for them, and that you
would like to make the extra effort and take the extra time to help them find
something that best suits their needs.
Rule: The most important thing you can do as a businessperson and a
salesperson is to convince other people that you have an al - most religious
dedication to and belief in your company and the value of its products to
improve the quality of human life and happi- ness as well as a devotion to a
cause.
That is why it is important to make very sure that you have cor- rectly
filled in the Marketing Identity Worksheet before you go out on a sales call or
get on the phone and attempt to sell your company, an idea, a product, or a
service.
Therefore, let us look at the elements of that Marketing Identity
Worksheet one by one and talk about why they are important.
+ouµ Xoµtov¢ Noµc
Your company name had better be good, especially if it is a new com-
pany. It is your primary sales tool. It should be short, powerful, and have a
lofty, service-oriented ring to it. A name that you can feel truly proud of.
A great company name, in my opinion, is ICon, the name of the computer
service and Internet corporation with offices located in New York and New
Jersey. At the time this book was written, my good
16 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
friend Tom Livaccari was vice president of New Media for ICon and was
serving on the advisory board of my own company. (Tom has since moved on
to become director of sales and marketing for Den- nis Interactive, one of the
nation's leading Interactive software devel- opment companies and a subsidiary
of Dennis Publishing, the largest independently owned publishing company
in the United Kingdom. A master salesman, Tom will present his theories on
the
psychology of salesmanship in Chapter 11.)
Not only does the name ICon connote the ''paragon of author- ity,'' it is
also linked with one of the most visible and often-used sym- bols in software,
that of the computer software program icon.
And there's a lot more going on in the ICon name, too. Remem- ber that a
few paragraphs before I said that all great business vision- aries have tried to
find a way to project their companies as having an aura of almost religious
integrity and devotion to a cause.
Please do not underestimate the importance of having such an aura
around your company.
Look, for example, at the definition of icon from the Random House
Dictionary: ''Icon N. 1.Eastern Ch. representation of a sacred
personage . . . ; 2. anything devotedly admired.''
Now, it is easy to see that, with such a name, any person calling on behalf
of this company has a distinct psychological advantage. Their psychological
advantage is that they are portraying themselves
as being associated with things that are:
1. Sacred, or treated as sacred by the people who work for it
2. Unquestionably authoritative
3. Admired by everyone else
4. Associated with one of the most commonly used words in
computer software terminology
As common sense would dictate, if you are striving to come up with a
company name, it is often smarter to strive for a powerful, dignified and
important-sounding name rather than a cute or clever
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 17
name, which, even if it works, might fade from the public imagina- tion in a
couple of years.
In some rare cases, of course, there will be times when a cute or clever
name will suit your needs just fine. Say, for example, that you live in Vermont
and make muffins. One day it occurs to you that you want to start your own
company and you decide to name your company the Moon Patch Muffin
Company. (Since I just made this name up, I apologize to anyone who might
actually be using it unbe- knownst to me.) All of your friends love the name
and you feel good about it, too. Who knows, the Moon Patch Muffin Company
name may eventually work its way into the collective heart of America and you
might end up a billionaire.
But more often than not, the choice of a cute or clever name is risky
because these names are prisoners of fashion and the fickleness of trends.
Fashion is a very fickle goddess, and she rules her kingdom hand in hand with
her equally fickle sister, Fame. One minute you are their favorite person and
the next thing you know, you have been banished from the kingdom forever.
If you don't believe my point of view on this, just go into the grocery store
and look at the latest lineup of supercool sodas, juices, and bottled waters.
Then go back to the store a year later and see how many of them are still on
the shelf.
My point is that if you are starting your own company and have the luxury
of choosing your own name, you had better pick a name you can be
comfortable with for a long time. When it comes to creat- ing an image, most
CEOs would tell you this: Be wary of being cool. What is hip this year will not
likely be hip next year. You may be stuck with the unpleasant task of having to
peel off your own skin in order to shed a name or concept that you no longer
want to be associated with.
So first of all, try to associate yourself with a name, concept, and product
that you are proud of and believe that you can remain proud of for a long time.
Next you must convince people that you are not only proud of your
company but that you also believe in your company.
18 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Which brings us to the next question.
What is it that you believe in?
+ouµ Miooiov
There are few companies in existence today that have not devised a
mission statement and a values statement.
Unfortunately, some of these mission and values statements sound
patently phony, and so they have the opposite of the intended effect.
Consider this facetious example:
Big Bob's Nuclear Bomb Discount House:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to offer quality nuclear armaments to psy-
chotic terrorists and other world leaders along with the latest variety
of biological weapons. We promise quality results and unsurpassed
excellence with all of our instruments of mass destruction. Along with
quality customer care and a dedica- tion to excellence, we seek to
promote excellent community relations and a respect for the
environment, with a special level of compassion for the rights of
women and minorities, except in those instances when our clients
want to blow them up.
The point that I am trying to make is that mission statements
have become so formulaic that they all sound alike, and no one be- lieves them
anymore, so easy is it to spew out a paragraph of pure mental garbage as is
represented in the words of the example given above.
The original intent of mission statements, I think, was to get companies
and executives to actually ponder what it is they believed in and wanted to do
to make the world a better place—what they
really believed in, and not what they just said they believed in.
Oqot Ao Miooiov ovo çoìuco Pcoìì¢ Mcov?
All of this mission and values stuff really started taking off in 1994
when two business school professors, Gary Hamel and C. K. Praha-
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 19
lad, wrote a book called Competing for the Future in which they in- troduced
''core competencies,'' a term that has now become commonplace in the
business world.
I believe Hamel and Prahalad have written a very useful and in- telligent
book, but when you really get down to it, what they asked companies to think
about was actually a very simple series of ques-
tions:
What is it that we do?
What are we good at?
What skills and services make us unique?
Why should anybody care what we have to say about anything? With the
changes that are occurring in consumer demands, what
will make people think we are the best at what we do five or ten
years from now?
What Hamel and Prahalad also suggested was that every em-
ployee of every company must be able to answer a similar set of questions.
The most important questions employees must ask them-
selves might be summarized this way:
What is it that I do?
What am I especially good at?
What skills and services make me unique?
Why should anybody care what I have to say about anything?
With changes occurring in my field of expertise, why would any-
body want to continue employing me five or ten years from now?
What executives, corporate visionaries, and managers are sup-
posed to be responsible for, in effect, is making sure that the com- pany knows
all of the answers to the company questions and that each employee has
adequate personal answers, which are at least vaguely related to the answers
the company gave.
20 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Obviously, if a company cannot answer the simple questions
listed above, it has no business being in business. And just as obvi - ously, if an
employee cannot answer the questions that pertain to employees, the employee
had better start looking for a new line of work.
But you will be surprised what many management professionals found
when they began going around asking executives what their company was best
at. Hard to believe, but many companies simply do not know or cannot express
in the English language what it is that makes them more interesting or valuable
than the next guy. I know because I have been one of those consultants
companies have called
upon to help define such things as ''core competencies.''
I keep noticing, by the way, that almost every time I pick up the paper, I
find that yet another large company has ''right-sized'' or ''downsized'' and has
laid off another group of 5,000 people.
Is it possible that all this downsizing in the United States is oc- curring, at
least in part, because no one in these companies knows exactly what it is
they're trying to sell, and why anyone should care? Could it be that someone at
these companies might want to try writ-
ing a mission statement that actually makes sense?
Mission statements should not be complicated, but they should be
carefully thought out and they should be as sincere as you can make them.
They cannot be glib but must involve a certain amount of genuine soul-
searching.
If you are going to be successful at marketing or sales, you must also do a
little soul-searching of your own.
These are the main questions successful people seem to ask
themselves:
What do I really want to do with my life and talent?
If I am not doing what I want, why am I not doing it? What
obstacles can I remove so I can do what I want?
Am I creating a personal mission statement that makes me
happy, or one that merely sounds good to people I want to im-
press?
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 21
How can I condense my personal goals in life—what I want to achieve
and can achieve—into as many words as would fit on
the back of a cocktail napkin?
How can I wake up every morning and do several small, man-
ageable, and accomplishable tasks before sundown that will allow me to
get one foot closer to my goal, while reminding my- self every second that
no one's opinion of me matters, except for
my own?
Which brings us to the next stage of the Marketing Identity
Worksheet. What is it about your own character that you value the
most?
M¢ çoìuco
Writing a values statement is the other part of the mission and values
writing assignment most companies have asked their public rela- tions
departments to do.
Giving short shrift or inadequate attention to your mission and values
statements is not always the wisest course of action, because many times what
you get is a lot of mamby-pamby nonsense prettily displayed in a nice little
frame.
This is how many combined mission and value statements pre-
pared by public relations departments appear to me:
Two-Timing Tommy's Toxic Waste Disposal:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to maximize our profits and increase the divi- dends of
our shareholders by disposing of toxic waste in a way that makes the
very best of state and federal loopholes, while constantly consulting
our excellent team of corporate negligence lawyers. Even in the face
of outrageous demands from a meddling and self-righteous public, we
will continue to put our shareholders first, and to dump our toxic
waste when and where we want to, unless irreversible Supreme
Court decisions force us to stop.
22 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Two-Timing Tommy's Values
Integrity
Compassion
Commitment to Excellence
Loyalty
Quality
Dedication
I think you get the point. Many times, when we read the values statements
of companies we wish they hadn't bothered to write them at all because we can't
think of a single person in those companies who seems to re?ect those values.
When management gurus first brought the importance of writ- ing values
statements into play, I think they hoped that executives in the corporation
would actually sit down with one another and talk about the values that really
mattered to them—the ideas that made them strong—and then compare notes
to see what values they had in common.
That is still what management gurus would like companies to do—to get
their executives to actually define the values that make them strong and then
write a list of shared values.
I don't think this exercise is being done as often as it should, so
organizational development directors tend to get excited when any- one shows
the slightest interest in improving the company's mission and values statements.
I heard a good story about a consultant who was doing business with a
corporation that will remain anonymous. This story will give you an idea of the
general state of the union as far as corporate val- ues statements are concerned.
The head of organizational development of a major corporation reported
that she had been asking one of the corporation's top exec- utives to give some
thought to mission and values for the past year. After putting her off many
times he had finally come through.
The management executive handed the consultant a dirty, wad- ded paper
napkin. The consultant unwadded the napkin. Written in
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 23
nearly undecipherable handwriting on this crumpled piece of paper was the
following collection of words: ''integrity? profit, stakeholder
happiness, quality, vision? excellence?''
Apparently the executive had scribbled these words in haste dur- ing lunch
in order to complete his thinking assignment about values. It was my
impression that he did it as quickly as possible just so the organizational
development executive would shut up and leave him alone.
But this crumpled napkin is now a highly prized possession of the
organizational development executive. ''It's wonderful,'' she is reported to have
said of her napkin, in a quavering, emotional voice. ''They're finally thinking
about it! This company is headed for the
future at last, and the evidence is right there on that napkin.''
But, if you want to be a great salesperson, you have to give a little more
thought to your values than the executive who composed that little cocktail
napkin. Why? Because your values—and every- thing else on your Marketing
Identity Worksheet—constitutes your psychological armor when you go on to
the battlefield of business. They also come in very handy on the battlefield of
life.
Tqc Etµu¸¸ìc o| Eto¢iv¸ Tµuc to +ouµocì|
I don't think the hardest part about business is the work, after all. I
think it's the grueling process of sticking to your mission and values and not
letting anyone undermine your convictions or your belief in yourself.
Sad Fact: The moment you decide to be successful and focused and
happy and emotionally independent, letting all potential critics know that their
superficial opinions of you don't bother you one bit, you will have made
enemies of many members of the human race, including not a small number of
people who used to be your friends.
Why? Because some people who used to be nice to you as long as you
didn't show them up will be jealous of your success. That's just one of those sad
and pitiful facts of life, I'm afraid. The more self- contained, independent, and
happy you become, the more hidden enemies you will create.
That raises a tricky issue because most successful and happy
24 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
people are also nice, sensitive people. That's why they're happy. Be- cause they
have a heart. But, if you have a heart, you're also vulnera- ble to the envy of
those people who don't have the courage to do what you do.
This gives you two options:
You can pay attention to the mad lunatic ravings of all the people
who will be jealous of you for trying to be successful and happy; you can get
confused about your values and mission in life and learn to lose confidence in
yourself. If you do this, you will quickly turn into a neurotic and then help your
psychiatrist build a really nice summer home to which you will never be
invited.
Or, you can sit down once and for all and give some serious thought to
every single line on the Marketing Identity Worksheet. De- cide once and for
all what you want to do (your mission). Write down, on the same sheet of
paper, what it is that makes you great. Write down the values that you really
believe in—the ones that give you strength in the face of adversity. Decide
why people would want to buy what you have to offer the world, considering
your knowledge and intelligence and the quality you have to offer. Commit all
of this to memory. Carry it forth like a banner. Recite it in the shower when
you get up in the morning. Surround yourself with brilliant, honest, and
cheerful people. Make sure all of your friends and significant others
understand your values and mission and are completely sup- portive of them. If
your friends or significant others do not support or understand, immediately
dissociate yourself from them and find new friends and significant others who
do. Stick to your guns and follow this game plan until you achieve everything
you want. Do not allow anyone to undermine your confidence in yourself in any
shape, form, or fashion. Only share your vision with people who respect you.
In this way you will save yourself a lot of money in psychiatry bills and live a
long and happy life.
This is, in essence, what the importance of values is all about— getting to
know yourself and being proud of who you are. This, in fact, is the most
powerful psychological advantage you have as a businessperson and
salesperson.
It will also give you a sense of peace beyond Zen.
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 25
In order to keep from getting overwhelmed with introspection too early in
the book, we will leave our Marketing Identity Worksheet behind for a moment
so the concepts we just discussed have time to sink in. But we will keep
returning to this worksheet throughout the course of the book because one of
your goals as a reader will be to completely think through the answers and
meaning to every line on the Sales Strategy Worksheet and the Marketing
Identity Worksheet.
doc_659224975.docx
There is an easy way and a complicated way of talking about the art of selling, just as there is an easy way and a hard way to live.
CHAPTER 1
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt
ovo o E_icv_c
T
here is an easy way and a complicated way of talking about the art of
selling, just as there is an easy way and a hard way to live. Since I
personally like books that are easy to understand, I will
try to present things as simply as I can. But since I know some of us also enjoy
the theoretical, difficult, and mentally challenging aspects of marketing theory, I
will throw in a little bit of that, too.
First, the simple stuff.
One of the things that I have liked the most about interviewing
executives and CEOs is that on many occasions I have had to sit pa- tiently in
the corner of a large office while the executive took a sales call that could not
be missed. Listening to these sales calls has been an education in itself.
The funny thing is, almost every salesperson I have ever heard on the
phone uses exactly the same approach. It is not like the mov- ies, such as in
Oliver Stone's Wall Street, where high-powered ego- maniacs are talking fifty
million miles an hour into their cell phones and screaming at the top of their
lungs to convince people to buy their products or ideas.
In fact, what you hear is exactly the opposite. Most buyers, whether those
buyers are elderly people looking for a good vacuum
9
10 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
cleaner or a board of directors looking for a new CEO, are cautious buyers, and
they tend to trust soft-spoken, highly credentialed peo- ple who talk slowly,
express the facts, and give other people time to think.
This is how real master salespeople act:
• Master salespeople, especially when they are on a sales call,
either in person or on the phone, speak very quietly and very
slowly.
• Master salespeople on a sales call hardly ever seem to show
any emotion except for enthusiasm, compassion, or positive
regard. They never display prejudice, political opinions, or any kind of
defensiveness or negative emotion whatsoever. Master salespeople
rarely get angry and never express anger, even if they feel it.
• Master salespeople never take no for an answer but always
seem to quietly find some different angle to pursue in conver-
sation, even if their original proposal is turned down.
• Master salespeople seem to always find a way to get every
caller to ''leave the door open'' for another conversation, even
if they don't get what they want the first time.
• Master salespeople seem to realize that cultivating and build-
ing personal relationships is more important than making an
immediate sale. They would never compromise a friendship to make a
sale. But by using this approach, they make more sales to more people
more often.
Those are the basic similarities I have noticed about all master salespeople
whenever I have seen them in action in person or on the telephone.
But there is another important similarity I have noticed that is harder to
capture in a few phrases. It is this: Most master salespeople seem to use a
precise scientific formula to communicate themselves and their products to
potential customers in an extremely methodi-
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 11
cal but powerful fashion. After listening to many master salespeople do the
same thing several thousand times, I began to figure out what they were doing.
I gradually discovered that they were all using an invisible mar- keting
worksheet that contained a highly distilled and focused strat- egy for
communicating certain key points about themselves and their products to
every person they talked with. They all seemed to have done research on the
personality styles and the interests of the people to whom they were trying to
sell. And they used a different style of communication, depending on whom it
was they were talk- ing to.
Moreover, I noticed that all these master salespeople almost al- ways
spoke in a level, nonemotional tone in short, direct sentences. And although
each one used a highly personalized technique, they were all using some kind
of invisible sales sheet in their heads that
might look something like this if you were to put it on paper:
Sales Strategy Worksheet
Customer: Time/Date: Assistant(s):
Telephone: Fax: E-mail:
Address:
Occupation of customer/buying power:
Product to sell this customer:
Competitive strengths of my product:
1. 2. 3.
What's in it for the customer? Why should the customer care about my product?
1. 2. 3.
12 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Customer type:
Age/Sex/Marital status/Education:
Personality type:
Stress points:
Calming points:
Interests/Family values:
Sales strategy:
Initial comments of customer to first call and follow-up strategy: (i.e., How did I handle
obstacles and what do I plan to do. . . . keeping notes on every call)
Granted, all master salespeople, such as CEOs and other top ex- ecutives,
don't actually have paper versions of this kind of worksheet. Some simply carry
the information around in their heads. But make no mistake about it, all master
salespeople know every single piece of information that would be included on
such worksheets, if they used them. And some of them actually do.
So, in the first part of the book we will spend some time talking about
why it is important to know each piece of information on this Sales Strategy
Worksheet; then, in the next part, we will talk about how to use this
information to your sales advantage once you have it.
But first, I want to introduce you to another ''invisible sheet'' that all master
salespeople seem to use. Let's call it the Marketing Identity Worksheet. It is
this sheet that gives the master sales and marketing professional that supreme
self-confidence and power in a sales call. It is each businessperson's manifesto,
and it guides every business letter, marketing statement, or press release he
will ever write or approve.
If you were to put the key elements of this invisible Marketing
Identity Worksheet on one page, it would look something like this:
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c
Marketing Identity Worksheet
Company name:
My mission:
My values:
Services and/or product(s):
Potential customers:
Competitive strengths of services and/or product(s):
1.
2.
3.
What's in it for the customer? Why should the customer care what I have to say?
1.
2.
3.
13
Now, anyone who has completed a few business courses might
scoff at such a sheet, protesting that it is too simplistic.
Only after they have been successful in business for a while or have
accepted tenure as a professor at a major business school does it dawn on most
people that marketing is simple and that if you ig- nore the basics for one
second, you're finished before you start.
That is why every single CEO or other master salesperson I have ever met
seems to project with absolute solid authority, every single second spent in
public, the filled-in blanks of the Marketing Identity Worksheet.
As a matter of fact, to continue refining the message of their key marketing
points and then commit the message of this worksheet to
14 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
heart and memory until it becomes a mantra is usually an ongoing and pivotal
part of their job. To keep selling this refined message to the entire organization
is the next step.
Why?
Think about it. The preparation that goes into a sale may take
months and months of intellectual analysis, but there always comes the
moment of truth that, for lack of a better expression, is called the sales call.
The sales call might be a presentation made before a corporate board, or it
might be an interview on someone's front porch. It doesn't matter. The
approach has to be the same. You don't have the time or the luxury to make up
your sales presentation on the spot. If you try to wing it, most people will think
you're unprofessional, or simply mad.
The business world has no tolerance for extemporaneous genius
or sudden bursts of wild emotion and undisciplined enthusiasm.
In business, you must always project yourself as being nonemo- tional,
well-prepared, and right, just like Star Trek 's Mr. Spock. Most potential
buyers, because of the science of personality, would buy anything from Mr.
Spock, because Mr. Spock has no emotions—just facts. As mentioned, most
buyers, as a general rule, are made suspi- cious by high emotion and
uncontrolled enthusiasm.
On the other hand, buyers are made comfortable by facts and a calm
assurance: ''My product is going to take the guesswork and
uncertainty out of your life.''
Therefore, your sales pitch has to be memorized; it has to be precise; it
has to include a personal knowledge of all the information on the worksheet
above; and whether you like it or not, it has to be spiritually oriented.
By spiritually oriented I mean this: You must be selling a product that you
believe in to the core of your soul, and that you feel can make people's lives
better, or easier, or ease human suffering in some way.
If you do not feel this passionately about your product, no one is going to
buy it. Even worse, people will sense your insecurity and will resent you for
trying to sell something you don't believe in, and your reputation will be ruined
forever with these people.
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 15
Now, some people might challenge this idea, saying that it is not
applicable if, for example, you are selling garden seeds or used cars. It is my
experience, however, that the spiritually grounded and customer-conscious
aspects of sales are paramount, no matter what you are selling—even if it is
used cars. The reason is that, again, most people are made uncomfortable by
people who give potential clients or customers the impression that they are
selling something they do not believe in, and/or that they might be trying to
sell them some- thing that they don't need or want. Your ultimate goal as a
salesper- son is to put people at ease and to let them know that you are
concerned about their purchase. So even if you are selling used cars, you will
sell a lot more of them if you make a habit of letting your customers know that
you do not want to sell them a used car that is not right for them, and that you
would like to make the extra effort and take the extra time to help them find
something that best suits their needs.
Rule: The most important thing you can do as a businessperson and a
salesperson is to convince other people that you have an al - most religious
dedication to and belief in your company and the value of its products to
improve the quality of human life and happi- ness as well as a devotion to a
cause.
That is why it is important to make very sure that you have cor- rectly
filled in the Marketing Identity Worksheet before you go out on a sales call or
get on the phone and attempt to sell your company, an idea, a product, or a
service.
Therefore, let us look at the elements of that Marketing Identity
Worksheet one by one and talk about why they are important.
+ouµ Xoµtov¢ Noµc
Your company name had better be good, especially if it is a new com-
pany. It is your primary sales tool. It should be short, powerful, and have a
lofty, service-oriented ring to it. A name that you can feel truly proud of.
A great company name, in my opinion, is ICon, the name of the computer
service and Internet corporation with offices located in New York and New
Jersey. At the time this book was written, my good
16 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
friend Tom Livaccari was vice president of New Media for ICon and was
serving on the advisory board of my own company. (Tom has since moved on
to become director of sales and marketing for Den- nis Interactive, one of the
nation's leading Interactive software devel- opment companies and a subsidiary
of Dennis Publishing, the largest independently owned publishing company
in the United Kingdom. A master salesman, Tom will present his theories on
the
psychology of salesmanship in Chapter 11.)
Not only does the name ICon connote the ''paragon of author- ity,'' it is
also linked with one of the most visible and often-used sym- bols in software,
that of the computer software program icon.
And there's a lot more going on in the ICon name, too. Remem- ber that a
few paragraphs before I said that all great business vision- aries have tried to
find a way to project their companies as having an aura of almost religious
integrity and devotion to a cause.
Please do not underestimate the importance of having such an aura
around your company.
Look, for example, at the definition of icon from the Random House
Dictionary: ''Icon N. 1.Eastern Ch. representation of a sacred
personage . . . ; 2. anything devotedly admired.''
Now, it is easy to see that, with such a name, any person calling on behalf
of this company has a distinct psychological advantage. Their psychological
advantage is that they are portraying themselves
as being associated with things that are:
1. Sacred, or treated as sacred by the people who work for it
2. Unquestionably authoritative
3. Admired by everyone else
4. Associated with one of the most commonly used words in
computer software terminology
As common sense would dictate, if you are striving to come up with a
company name, it is often smarter to strive for a powerful, dignified and
important-sounding name rather than a cute or clever
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 17
name, which, even if it works, might fade from the public imagina- tion in a
couple of years.
In some rare cases, of course, there will be times when a cute or clever
name will suit your needs just fine. Say, for example, that you live in Vermont
and make muffins. One day it occurs to you that you want to start your own
company and you decide to name your company the Moon Patch Muffin
Company. (Since I just made this name up, I apologize to anyone who might
actually be using it unbe- knownst to me.) All of your friends love the name
and you feel good about it, too. Who knows, the Moon Patch Muffin Company
name may eventually work its way into the collective heart of America and you
might end up a billionaire.
But more often than not, the choice of a cute or clever name is risky
because these names are prisoners of fashion and the fickleness of trends.
Fashion is a very fickle goddess, and she rules her kingdom hand in hand with
her equally fickle sister, Fame. One minute you are their favorite person and
the next thing you know, you have been banished from the kingdom forever.
If you don't believe my point of view on this, just go into the grocery store
and look at the latest lineup of supercool sodas, juices, and bottled waters.
Then go back to the store a year later and see how many of them are still on
the shelf.
My point is that if you are starting your own company and have the luxury
of choosing your own name, you had better pick a name you can be
comfortable with for a long time. When it comes to creat- ing an image, most
CEOs would tell you this: Be wary of being cool. What is hip this year will not
likely be hip next year. You may be stuck with the unpleasant task of having to
peel off your own skin in order to shed a name or concept that you no longer
want to be associated with.
So first of all, try to associate yourself with a name, concept, and product
that you are proud of and believe that you can remain proud of for a long time.
Next you must convince people that you are not only proud of your
company but that you also believe in your company.
18 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Which brings us to the next question.
What is it that you believe in?
+ouµ Miooiov
There are few companies in existence today that have not devised a
mission statement and a values statement.
Unfortunately, some of these mission and values statements sound
patently phony, and so they have the opposite of the intended effect.
Consider this facetious example:
Big Bob's Nuclear Bomb Discount House:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to offer quality nuclear armaments to psy-
chotic terrorists and other world leaders along with the latest variety
of biological weapons. We promise quality results and unsurpassed
excellence with all of our instruments of mass destruction. Along with
quality customer care and a dedica- tion to excellence, we seek to
promote excellent community relations and a respect for the
environment, with a special level of compassion for the rights of
women and minorities, except in those instances when our clients
want to blow them up.
The point that I am trying to make is that mission statements
have become so formulaic that they all sound alike, and no one be- lieves them
anymore, so easy is it to spew out a paragraph of pure mental garbage as is
represented in the words of the example given above.
The original intent of mission statements, I think, was to get companies
and executives to actually ponder what it is they believed in and wanted to do
to make the world a better place—what they
really believed in, and not what they just said they believed in.
Oqot Ao Miooiov ovo çoìuco Pcoìì¢ Mcov?
All of this mission and values stuff really started taking off in 1994
when two business school professors, Gary Hamel and C. K. Praha-
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 19
lad, wrote a book called Competing for the Future in which they in- troduced
''core competencies,'' a term that has now become commonplace in the
business world.
I believe Hamel and Prahalad have written a very useful and in- telligent
book, but when you really get down to it, what they asked companies to think
about was actually a very simple series of ques-
tions:
What is it that we do?
What are we good at?
What skills and services make us unique?
Why should anybody care what we have to say about anything? With the
changes that are occurring in consumer demands, what
will make people think we are the best at what we do five or ten
years from now?
What Hamel and Prahalad also suggested was that every em-
ployee of every company must be able to answer a similar set of questions.
The most important questions employees must ask them-
selves might be summarized this way:
What is it that I do?
What am I especially good at?
What skills and services make me unique?
Why should anybody care what I have to say about anything?
With changes occurring in my field of expertise, why would any-
body want to continue employing me five or ten years from now?
What executives, corporate visionaries, and managers are sup-
posed to be responsible for, in effect, is making sure that the com- pany knows
all of the answers to the company questions and that each employee has
adequate personal answers, which are at least vaguely related to the answers
the company gave.
20 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Obviously, if a company cannot answer the simple questions
listed above, it has no business being in business. And just as obvi - ously, if an
employee cannot answer the questions that pertain to employees, the employee
had better start looking for a new line of work.
But you will be surprised what many management professionals found
when they began going around asking executives what their company was best
at. Hard to believe, but many companies simply do not know or cannot express
in the English language what it is that makes them more interesting or valuable
than the next guy. I know because I have been one of those consultants
companies have called
upon to help define such things as ''core competencies.''
I keep noticing, by the way, that almost every time I pick up the paper, I
find that yet another large company has ''right-sized'' or ''downsized'' and has
laid off another group of 5,000 people.
Is it possible that all this downsizing in the United States is oc- curring, at
least in part, because no one in these companies knows exactly what it is
they're trying to sell, and why anyone should care? Could it be that someone at
these companies might want to try writ-
ing a mission statement that actually makes sense?
Mission statements should not be complicated, but they should be
carefully thought out and they should be as sincere as you can make them.
They cannot be glib but must involve a certain amount of genuine soul-
searching.
If you are going to be successful at marketing or sales, you must also do a
little soul-searching of your own.
These are the main questions successful people seem to ask
themselves:
What do I really want to do with my life and talent?
If I am not doing what I want, why am I not doing it? What
obstacles can I remove so I can do what I want?
Am I creating a personal mission statement that makes me
happy, or one that merely sounds good to people I want to im-
press?
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 21
How can I condense my personal goals in life—what I want to achieve
and can achieve—into as many words as would fit on
the back of a cocktail napkin?
How can I wake up every morning and do several small, man-
ageable, and accomplishable tasks before sundown that will allow me to
get one foot closer to my goal, while reminding my- self every second that
no one's opinion of me matters, except for
my own?
Which brings us to the next stage of the Marketing Identity
Worksheet. What is it about your own character that you value the
most?
M¢ çoìuco
Writing a values statement is the other part of the mission and values
writing assignment most companies have asked their public rela- tions
departments to do.
Giving short shrift or inadequate attention to your mission and values
statements is not always the wisest course of action, because many times what
you get is a lot of mamby-pamby nonsense prettily displayed in a nice little
frame.
This is how many combined mission and value statements pre-
pared by public relations departments appear to me:
Two-Timing Tommy's Toxic Waste Disposal:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to maximize our profits and increase the divi- dends of
our shareholders by disposing of toxic waste in a way that makes the
very best of state and federal loopholes, while constantly consulting
our excellent team of corporate negligence lawyers. Even in the face
of outrageous demands from a meddling and self-righteous public, we
will continue to put our shareholders first, and to dump our toxic
waste when and where we want to, unless irreversible Supreme
Court decisions force us to stop.
22 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
Two-Timing Tommy's Values
Integrity
Compassion
Commitment to Excellence
Loyalty
Quality
Dedication
I think you get the point. Many times, when we read the values statements
of companies we wish they hadn't bothered to write them at all because we can't
think of a single person in those companies who seems to re?ect those values.
When management gurus first brought the importance of writ- ing values
statements into play, I think they hoped that executives in the corporation
would actually sit down with one another and talk about the values that really
mattered to them—the ideas that made them strong—and then compare notes
to see what values they had in common.
That is still what management gurus would like companies to do—to get
their executives to actually define the values that make them strong and then
write a list of shared values.
I don't think this exercise is being done as often as it should, so
organizational development directors tend to get excited when any- one shows
the slightest interest in improving the company's mission and values statements.
I heard a good story about a consultant who was doing business with a
corporation that will remain anonymous. This story will give you an idea of the
general state of the union as far as corporate val- ues statements are concerned.
The head of organizational development of a major corporation reported
that she had been asking one of the corporation's top exec- utives to give some
thought to mission and values for the past year. After putting her off many
times he had finally come through.
The management executive handed the consultant a dirty, wad- ded paper
napkin. The consultant unwadded the napkin. Written in
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 23
nearly undecipherable handwriting on this crumpled piece of paper was the
following collection of words: ''integrity? profit, stakeholder
happiness, quality, vision? excellence?''
Apparently the executive had scribbled these words in haste dur- ing lunch
in order to complete his thinking assignment about values. It was my
impression that he did it as quickly as possible just so the organizational
development executive would shut up and leave him alone.
But this crumpled napkin is now a highly prized possession of the
organizational development executive. ''It's wonderful,'' she is reported to have
said of her napkin, in a quavering, emotional voice. ''They're finally thinking
about it! This company is headed for the
future at last, and the evidence is right there on that napkin.''
But, if you want to be a great salesperson, you have to give a little more
thought to your values than the executive who composed that little cocktail
napkin. Why? Because your values—and every- thing else on your Marketing
Identity Worksheet—constitutes your psychological armor when you go on to
the battlefield of business. They also come in very handy on the battlefield of
life.
Tqc Etµu¸¸ìc o| Eto¢iv¸ Tµuc to +ouµocì|
I don't think the hardest part about business is the work, after all. I
think it's the grueling process of sticking to your mission and values and not
letting anyone undermine your convictions or your belief in yourself.
Sad Fact: The moment you decide to be successful and focused and
happy and emotionally independent, letting all potential critics know that their
superficial opinions of you don't bother you one bit, you will have made
enemies of many members of the human race, including not a small number of
people who used to be your friends.
Why? Because some people who used to be nice to you as long as you
didn't show them up will be jealous of your success. That's just one of those sad
and pitiful facts of life, I'm afraid. The more self- contained, independent, and
happy you become, the more hidden enemies you will create.
That raises a tricky issue because most successful and happy
24 Hoe to Mivo÷Pcoo +ouµ Xuotoµcµo
people are also nice, sensitive people. That's why they're happy. Be- cause they
have a heart. But, if you have a heart, you're also vulnera- ble to the envy of
those people who don't have the courage to do what you do.
This gives you two options:
You can pay attention to the mad lunatic ravings of all the people
who will be jealous of you for trying to be successful and happy; you can get
confused about your values and mission in life and learn to lose confidence in
yourself. If you do this, you will quickly turn into a neurotic and then help your
psychiatrist build a really nice summer home to which you will never be
invited.
Or, you can sit down once and for all and give some serious thought to
every single line on the Marketing Identity Worksheet. De- cide once and for
all what you want to do (your mission). Write down, on the same sheet of
paper, what it is that makes you great. Write down the values that you really
believe in—the ones that give you strength in the face of adversity. Decide
why people would want to buy what you have to offer the world, considering
your knowledge and intelligence and the quality you have to offer. Commit all
of this to memory. Carry it forth like a banner. Recite it in the shower when
you get up in the morning. Surround yourself with brilliant, honest, and
cheerful people. Make sure all of your friends and significant others
understand your values and mission and are completely sup- portive of them. If
your friends or significant others do not support or understand, immediately
dissociate yourself from them and find new friends and significant others who
do. Stick to your guns and follow this game plan until you achieve everything
you want. Do not allow anyone to undermine your confidence in yourself in any
shape, form, or fashion. Only share your vision with people who respect you.
In this way you will save yourself a lot of money in psychiatry bills and live a
long and happy life.
This is, in essence, what the importance of values is all about— getting to
know yourself and being proud of who you are. This, in fact, is the most
powerful psychological advantage you have as a businessperson and
salesperson.
It will also give you a sense of peace beyond Zen.
Eoìcoµovoqit oo ov Aµt ovo o E_icv_c 25
In order to keep from getting overwhelmed with introspection too early in
the book, we will leave our Marketing Identity Worksheet behind for a moment
so the concepts we just discussed have time to sink in. But we will keep
returning to this worksheet throughout the course of the book because one of
your goals as a reader will be to completely think through the answers and
meaning to every line on the Sales Strategy Worksheet and the Marketing
Identity Worksheet.
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